The present invention generally relates to a part mounting or attaching machine for mounting, for example, electronic parts or components onto an electronic circuit board or the like, and more particularly, to an exchange arrangement for mounting heads each having position regulating claws for regulating positions of parts attracted by a suction nozzle thereof, for use in the part mounting machine.
Conventionally, there have been proposed various part mounting machines for mounting electronic parts onto an electronic circuit board or the like, in which a mounting head is displaceably provided between a part supply portion and the circuit board so as to attract the electronic part by a suction or attraction nozzle provided on said mounting head for mounting said part onto a predetermined position on the circuit board. Similarly, for improved accuracy at the part mounting position, there is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Application Tokkaisho No. 55-37283, an arrangement adapted to regulate positional deviation of an attracted part with respect to an axis of a suction nozzle by position regulating claws.
Meanwhile, there are cases where exchanging of suction nozzles or mounting heads is required depending on sizes of parts to be attracted, kinds of parts to be dealt with, or nature of work involved, etc., and Japanese Patent laid-Open Application Tokkaisho No. 59-69992 discloses an exchange arrangement for automatically effecting such exchanging, in which a plurality of straight tools such as suction nozzles or the like are supported by a holder, and the necessary tool is selectively picked out from the holder, by fitting a holding member at the side of the mounting head main body, into the upper end portion of said tool for subsequent raising of the holding member.
However, by the exchange arrangement as described above intended to exchange only the suction nozzles, transfer of the parts in a state where they are accurately regulated for position has been very difficult, and it is desirable to arrange mounting heads each having a suction nozzle and position regulating claws corresponding to the part configurations, to be exchangeable, but, in that case, there has been involved such a problem that, due to the mechanism, etc. required for opening and closing of the position regulating claws, construction of the mounting head itself, and that of the holder and function thereof are extremely complicated. In other words, if the conventional unexchangeable mounting head provided with the suction nozzles and position regulating claws were assumed to be altered into an exchangeable one, with its construction being maintained as it is, then the construction of the mounting head and that of the holder would be extremely complicated. Applicants know of no prior art device corresponding to such a postulated device.